PATTAYA, Thailand (AP) — There’s no getting around the fact that Thailand’s seaside resort of Pattaya has a lingering reputation for sex tourism, even though that’s only part of the story for the city that's a major shore leave destination of crew members aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.
Many of the 5,000 or so sailors and Marines onboard the Lincoln, as well as personnel on other ships in its carrier strike group, are visiting Pattaya for some rest and recuperation this week after the big ship’s long, troubled tour of duty in the Middle East.
Click to Gallery
Tourists ride a jet ski on Pattaya Beach in Pattaya, Thailand, on Aug. 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)
Boats float on Pattaya Beach in Thailand, on Aug. 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)
Tourists stroll down Walking Street in Pattaya, Thailand, on Aug. 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)
Tourists parasail on Pattaya Beach in Thailand, on Aug. 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)
Customers of a restaurant sit under a banner in Pattaya, Thailand, on Sept. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)
They will be following millions of other tourists, including a significant number of U.S. military personnel who take part every year in major land and sea exercises nearby with their Thai counterparts.
Social media ahead of the Lincoln’s visit has been awash with jibes about lusty sailors, but recent visitors say the development of more family-friendly attractions means the new, more wholesome Pattaya overshadows its former seedy self.
Many U.S. Navy ships dock at nearby deep-water facilities such as Laem Chabang Port and the Sattahip Royal Thai Navy Base, both less than an hour away by road.
Shore leave spending boosts the local economy, and mission duties often include community outreach in and around the city, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) southeast of Bangkok. That includes specialized medical care for villagers or putting in volunteer time at orphanages.
But when hundreds or thousands of sailors have a chance to enjoy some onshore liberty, the navy deploys members of its Shore Patrol to work side by side with Thai police to defuse any trouble.
Navy personnel are likely to have been reminded that, though rarely enforced, the law in Thailand technically bans prostitution, and paying for sex is a punishable offense under Article 134 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the legal framework for the U.S. armed forces.
The military connection goes back at least to the Vietnam War era, when at its height, 40,000–50,000 U.S. service personnel were stationed in Thailand, largely in support of that conflict’s air operations. Bases used by U.S. forces dotted Thailand, and all attracted their share of nightlife activities.
Pattaya was close to both the Sattahip naval base and the Thai Navy’s U-Tapao airfield, which hosted U.S. Air Force B-52 bombers.
Elizabeth Becker, author of “Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism,” wrote that American GIs during the Vietnam War flocked to Pattaya, a once-quiet fishing village, “and it turned into a raunchy seaside playground.”
The military facilities brought a continuous stream of personnel through Pattaya, while the 1966 Entertainment Places Act created a legal gray area allowing the sex trade to operate semi-openly in bars and massage parlors — as something of a private arrangement between customer and employee — despite a 1960 law criminalizing prostitution.
Pattaya also had a beach that could be reached relatively easily from Bangkok, which positioned it well for a transition to civilian visitors after the withdrawal of U.S. military forces in 1976.
Pattaya’s infrastructure of go-go clubs and other entertainment venues was then marketed to travelers arriving in greater numbers due to cheaper air travel and a boom in package tours. Sex tourism became entrenched.
Severe economic disparities brought many young women and men from Thailand’s poor northeastern Isan region to work in Pattaya's lucrative nightlife sector. They earned wages far exceeding rural agricultural incomes, allowing them to send money home to their families.
Prostitution is culturally taboo, but sex work has quietly flourished in Thai society for centuries, with the domestic market dwarfing the more glitzy one for foreigners.
Pattaya underwent another evolution in the 1990s, with a new wave of tourists coming from what had been the Soviet Union, after communism there collapsed in late 1991.
Embracing modern globalized tourism, the newcomers came on direct charter flights, even from provincial cities, to the civilian airport at U-Tapao, benefiting from a 30-day visa-free agreement. Signs in Cyrillic sprouted around Pattaya as businesses catered to this new clientele.
Russians were not the only people calling Pattaya their home away from home.
The agreeable climate and allegedly laissez-faire attitude of local law enforcement attracted fugitives from justice and criminals from all over the world, including Russian, Eastern European, and Western European gangsters as well as drug-dealing motorcycle gangs from Australia.
Pattaya has tried with some success to rebrand itself as a family destination, with parks, malls and luxury resorts largely in surrounding areas that attract large numbers of Thais and visitors from other Asian nations.
A popular water park is themed around Cartoon Network shows. The Nong Nooch Tropical Botanical Garden displays vast stretches of flora and hosts cultural shows. The Sanctuary of Truth Museum is an ornate all-wood structure over 100 meters (yards) tall.
There are also golf courses, running events and day trips to nearby islands.
Travelers can still get a taste of the spicier old Pattaya with a nocturnal stroll down “Walking Street,” at the heart of the city’s racy nightlife district.
Peck reported from Bangkok.
Tourists ride a jet ski on Pattaya Beach in Pattaya, Thailand, on Aug. 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)
Boats float on Pattaya Beach in Thailand, on Aug. 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)
Tourists stroll down Walking Street in Pattaya, Thailand, on Aug. 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)
Tourists parasail on Pattaya Beach in Thailand, on Aug. 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)
Customers of a restaurant sit under a banner in Pattaya, Thailand, on Sept. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)
The U.S. Postal Service is poised to launch a hastily built, error-riddled computer system that could jeopardize the process of mail voting relied upon by one-third of all voters, according to a whistleblower statement released Tuesday by Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal.
The effort is part of the implementation of President Donald Trump's executive order limiting mail voting and has been temporarily halted by a federal judge. The ruling is being appealed by the administration and the directive may ultimately end up back before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The disclosure from the unidentified whistleblower contends that the Postal Service has been scrambling to try to build a complex system that would normally take a year or more in only three months, sometimes in defiance of the judge's orders halting work. The goal is to have it ready for use in the midterm elections.
The disclosure contends that, due to the new procedures, a single scanning error in a batch of tens of thousands of ballot envelopes could prevent any from reaching voters. It details a system that election officials have already warned could not be implemented before the first mail ballots begin going out Friday in North Carolina.
“The Postal Service has designed a system to disenfranchise millions of Americans,” Blumenthal told reporters in advance of releasing the whistleblower information. “This administration seems hell-bent on changing the framework on casting ballots in this country clearly for political reasons.”
Trump’s executive order, signed in March, directed U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the commissioner of the Social Security Administration to develop state citizenship lists and then required the Postal Service to send mail ballots only to voters who are on such a list. Ballot envelopes would have to comply with new Postal Service rules and include barcodes.
The online portal that is the subject of the whistleblower complaint is intended for states to deliver their lists of verified voters to the Postal Service.
The Postal Service released a statement Tuesday evening in response to Blumenthal's letter, pledging to work with Congress and the courts. It noted that the judge who issued the latest restraining order explicitly allowed the service to continue to develop its online tool for states that want to use it voluntarily.
“Regardless of political party or perspective, we share a common goal: ensuring that Americans can have confidence that their election mail will be handled securely and delivered reliably,” the Postal Service said.
The White House said the software buildout process is “neither complex nor unique” for the Postal Service because it already uses bulk mailing and intelligent mail barcodes for large customers. “Under President Trump, the federal government is working to ensure safe, transparent, and honest elections," spokeswoman Lauren Bis said.
Jonathan Smith, president of the United Postal Workers Union, which has long opposed the executive order, said in a statement Tuesday: “The whistleblower report reveals what this executive order was always about — denying Americans their hard-fought right to vote. It is creating chaos in a system that is proven to be a safe, secure way for millions of Americans to vote.”
The 20 Democratic House members who sit on the Oversight Committee wrote a letter to Postmaster General David Steiner criticizing the project in light of the new revelations. "We demand that you immediately cease implementation of this irresponsible and illegal scheme to implement the Trump Administration’s plan to control our federal elections,” the Democrats wrote.
Trump has long opposed voting by mail, even though he has repeatedly used the method to cast his own ballot. He falsely blamed mail voting for his 2020 election loss and has spent years spreading conspiracy theories about it. A report by the Brookings Institution published in 2025 found that mail voting fraud occurred in only about four cases out of every 10 million mail ballots cast.
Since returning to office, Trump has said Republicans should be “taking over” vote counting in Democratic areas and launched a sweeping attempt to reinvestigate the 2020 election, despite a mountain of evidence that he lost fairly to Democrat Joe Biden.
Until Trump came out against mail voting in 2020, the system was used equally by both parties. Since then, it has become more common among Democratic voters. More than 29% of all voters in 2024 cast their ballots through the mail.
After Trump issued his executive order, Democrats and civil rights groups sued and eventually won a ruling from U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani in Boston barring implementation of the system before the November midterms. But without ruling on the legality of Trump's order, the Supreme Court's conservative majority last week found that was premature and overruled Talwani, momentarily clearing the way for its implementation.
On the night of Aug. 21, the Postal Service released a final rule outlining how it would implement the order.
It said it would only send mail ballots for states that got approval for the design of their envelopes and submitted a list of voters receiving them through the still-not-active online portal. That rule gave plaintiffs a chance to sue again, and Talwani on Thursday night issued a 14-day restraining order against implementation of the measure.
The letter from Blumenthal and an accompanying summary of the whistleblower's statements says the Postal Service began work on the portal on June 15 and stopped on June 25 after Talwani's initial order. Then on July 29, the Postal Service restarted the work. That was when the administration appealed the judge's order to the Supreme Court. The high court did not strike Talwani's injunction down until Aug. 24.
Talwani last week found the Postal Service violated her order by continuing to work on the final rule, but she imposed no sanctions on the government. On Monday, she issued a ruling refusing to lift the restraining order that also said the Postal Service could continue work on its portal, as long as it wasn't forcing states to use it.
In its summary of the whistleblower's statement, the group Whistleblower Aid says the hurried construction of the portal, with a goal of being active Tuesday, meant it did not undergo full testing.
“The apparently sloppy and rushed manner in which the Federal Ballot Mail Portal and supporting IT systems are being built poses significant risk,” the group wrote. “Potentially millions of American voters may not receive their mail-in ballot this election cycle in a timely manner, or at all.”
The statement also says the Postal Service is implementing a “zero percent” rule in which any errors in any mail ballots sent out by an election office could lead to all of them being discarded — even if it's simply one problem amid tens of thousands of legitimate ballots.
The rule requires ballots to be handled in a physical post office by an election official. Those will then be scanned to ensure they match the voter database. During three layers of checks, a single apparent error could cause the whole batch to be rejected, the statement says.
Blumenthal said he has “a very strong hope and some faith that our system of justice will strike down this unconstitutional and unconscionable rule.” But, he added, if it somehow goes into effect for the midterms, he would not advise voting by mail.
Associated Press writer Lindsay Whitehurst contributed to this story.
The Supreme Court is seen on the morning after the conservative majority sided with the Trump administration in a case over President Donald Trump's executive order restricting mail-in voting, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
FILE - Delivery vans are parked during a protest staged as part of a countrywide National Day of Action Tuesday, July 28, 2026, outside the main United States Postal Service headquarters in northeast Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)
